This chapter mainly talked about tests and what makes up a good test. I learned about mixing traditional and non-traditional questions in a test and about mixing forced choice and constructed response questions in a test. I learned what is considered traditional and not traditional. Traditional questions tend to be true/false, matching, fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, definitions, essays, and short answers. Non-traditional questions tend to be questions that incorporate analogies, drawings, diagrams, demonstrations/performances, more than one topic, and brainstorming. I learned the difference between forced choice and constructed response questions. Forced choice questions are questions and prompts that require students to choose from the responses provided by the teacher. Constructed response questions are questions or prompts for which students must generate the information themselves and apply it in the manner requested by the teacher. Some key points that the chapter pointed out about tests were the less students have to guess, the more they can achieve; and students appreciate meaty tasks more than drudgery tasks. Some tips that the chapter gave teachers were to give smaller more frequent tests, to list the standards at the top of the test, and to arrange challenge level of the problems either by starting easy and getting progressively harder or to mix the level throughout the test. The tips and suggestions that this chapter gave will impact me when making lesson plans and when creating tests. Knowing what makes a good test will help me evaluate tests that I will create and see if I have incorporated the things that make a good test into my tests.
Dominick
This chapter goes over the importance of test questions. It is extremely important to make test questions that do not confuse students. Students should answer questions that are direct and without confusion. If a student has a question posed to them that is straightforward then they are more likely to understand it, which then makes it more likely that they will be able to answer the question more efficiently. Why would a teacher ever ask their students questions that would confuse them? The student is already under enough pressure trying to take the test, why do they need more pressure to understand what the question is talking about. As teachers it is our job to make sure students understand questions that we ask them, not to be confused by them. We should also focus on making the question short, providing excessive information in the question will only cloud the student’s concentration when trying to make a decision. Another thing that future educators should keep in mind is to not over due a question. Teachers should not make a bunch of questions that are similar to each other in an attempt to once again confuse the student. This is not only annoying to the student, but it is repetitive. The last and possibly the most important thing for teachers to keep in mind about students taking tests is to not have the test timed. If the test is timed then the student is going to be rushed and make mistakes. I have been in that position before and asa student I can’t stand when teachers put students on the clock.
Cheyenne
This chapter discusses how to create meaningful test questions. Test questions should be easy to understand, with the teacher’s intentions being clear. Students shouldn’t have to worry about trick questions or trying to figure out what exactly a teacher is looking for. The point of tests is to assess students’ mastery, not to try and fail them on purpose with confusing questions. Each question needs to be meaningful and have an explicit purpose.
I really liked the idea of asking students to clarify why they chose a certain multiple choice answer, or clarifying a true/false question. I don’t know if it’s something I would want to do as a student, but from a teaching perspective, it’s definitely a good way to take note of a student's true level of understanding. With multiple choice questions, it is very easy for students to just guess and unknowingly pick the correct answer. Of course, doing this would require an interesting way of grading, because if a student got the question itself right but the explanation wrong, an argument could be made that they still got the question partially right. Maybe scoring for that could be something discussed with the class as a whole, so students are aware before hand what the point system would be for a situation like that.
Related to student awareness, I really liked how this chapter pushed making students aware of exactly what will be on the test, especially in terms of questions that might be trickier (such as having one that is impossible to answer). Honestly, I’m in favor of complete study guide, which help students know exactly what they should be studying and understanding, rather than letting them guess what they’ll need to understand.
Cory
This chapter talked about how to make good test questions. This is an extremely valuable thing for all teachers to know. Without the proper test questions, then a student will not be assessed correctly. This chapter included quite a bit of information that seemed rather general and unnecessary to be reiterated to me at least, but some of it was rather new and interesting to think about. I had never really thought about the efficiency factor when I was taking tests in school Looking back, I do remember teachers who had T’s and F’s to circle for their true and false questions and those that didn’t. I never really thought about it, but circling the letters makes it some much easier on the teacher while having little to no impact to how the student actually takes the test. Now teachers don’t have to guess whether or not a letter is and F or a T, they will know right away. One of the things that I will find hard is figuring out ways to make some of my questions more enjoyable. Social studies doesn’t have very many questions where I can add a student’s name and interest like some math examples they gave us. I can use students name when describing a kind of person in a vocabulary word, but other than that I can’t think of much. One thing I really liked was something professor Melcher did last semester in my political science class. He added little funny pictures that were jokes or vaguely had something to do with the content all around the test to be funny and keep our interest. That could be something I can do.
Lydia
While the majority of you class should not be based on tests they are still a way to assess a student in you class. This chapter gives helpful hints on how you should set up tests for students in a differentiated classroom. The first thing that is important is to have a variety of questions for example have a few multiple choice, matching and fill in the blanks as well as have a few that engage the students’ thinking. Writing prompts are a good idea to have because they let the student explain why their answer is the way it is. It is also important to include tiering in the tests that you give. It is also important to give feedback on a test as soon as possible, a way to do this would be to have students write two copies of their answers and have them keep one and go over the test right away. This will all affect my class because they will have feedback from me in a timely manner and will give them more motivation to want to learn more. Also if I give a variety of questions some students’ may be able to answer certain types of questions while struggling with other types. By having a variety of questions I can determine what a student’s strengths and weaknesses are and make sure that they are just memorizing the information. Another thing that I could do is ask students why they chose a certain answer on multiple choice. This will help me determine if their logic is correct or if they have any misunderstandings about the information.
Shane
The amount of information in this chapter really made the reading worth it. I think this may be the chapter that I have most agreed with and found the most important. This chapter taught us how to make testing easier on ourselves as well as our students. As teachers we need to create questions that are fair, yet meaningful and engaging. The biggest thing I agreed with is making an environment that is fair. The more straight forward we are the more they are going to get out of the education. If students have that test anxiety, it is going to be harder for them to succeed or portray information and that can reflect badly. The part where he said no one can professionally try to collapse knowledge into an hour of intense performance hit me hard. I hate having a time limit to testing or quizzes. If we want our students to do alright, then we need to make it a fairly stress free zone instead of making them feel like they are racing for there life. As a student I hate sitting down starting the test and thinking if I spend more than 2 minutes on a question then it is game over, or looking at the clock with 10 problems left and 5 minutes and just getting the sweats thinking I have to at least write something down. As a teacher I think the biggest concept I will try to incorporate would be making traditional and non traditional questions. I feel like this could help each individual learner. Sometimes students can’t put thoughts into words so allowing a diagram or drawing may end helping in the long run.
Sara
In chapter six of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, we learn about what makes a test question good. This is a very important topic because the way a question is phrased or just the nature of the question can mean the difference between a student passing or not. There are many different types of questions and each one has a time and place as to when it should be used. It is important for teachers to carefully think about their tests and create tests that will best evaluate student knowledge while also being clear and concise. If questions are short answer questions, teachers need to be aware of many things when asking the question. They need to keep in mind how they ask the question, is it clear what they want students to do, and what they are trying to say. It is best to keep the questions short, especially if a test is timed, students need to focus on answering the questions rather than spending a lot of time reading length questions.
For multiple choice questions or true or false questions one thing to keep in mind is patterns. Patterns may naturally appear, but teachers need to be sure that they do not have a set pattern that students can figure out and answer questions correctly when they don’t truly know the answer. It is also a good idea to include similar answers or commonly mistaken answers.
In a math classroom most of the questions will be solving equations, however it is important to have a variety of questions to better help students understand the material and to better ensure that they actually know the material.
Katelin
There were many aspects of this chapter that stood out to me and I agreed with, but a lot of it was hard for me to agree with. I honestly do not think I am going to test students and have them be graded by one performance test they take. When students are tired, they do not test well. Well, students are tired a lot of the time for numerous reasons, and there’s nothing that teachers can really do to change that. Students have test anxiety, and the only way to help that is to test better, and make it clear that tests are not graded the way they are used to. Doing what we can to help students not get tired is a good tool to have. Feedback is so so important to students in their learning. The tests are not there to see who can persevere to the end, but who can master concepts. Students constantly lose points on tests that are not even conceptual issues, but minute details that are not even what the test standard is trying to test. I would not give a test to grade versus on points, but on standards. Look at what the student understood conceptually, and pick out what they need to work on and find another way for them to be “tested” on it once they learn it. The point is not to have the student learn something to just get by on the test and pass it, but to conceptually understand everything the test is trying to accomplish.
Cooper
This chapter talked about test questions and how to make them accessible essentially. Basically this chapter served as a reminder that our job as teachers when we make tests is not to trap students into getting the wrong answer but rather to assess their understanding of the content. That is why it is important to try to be as clear as possible when wording a question so that students have very little opportunity to misinterpret the meaning of the question. Again the purpose of the test is to give students the opportunity to show their understanding of the content not to show how carefully they can read and understand what the question is asking of them. This is partially why I liked the idea of giving students oral exams rather than written exams. By having the opportunity to clarify their train of thought or the process the used to come to an answer I can more accurately assess their understanding of the material as opposed to just seeing that they answered a multiple choice question wrong. I also felt that being given the opportunity to explain why you chose an answer on a multiple choice question could be really effective. Not only would it be helpful for me a as teacher to know their thought process when answering the question, but it would also give them the opportunity to think about why they chose the answer that they did and potentially change it. Perhaps being forced to explain their own thinking would reveal that they chose an answer too quickly and did not take the time to fully understand the question.
Laura
This chapter provided a handful of straightforward and practical tips and tricks for designing test questions. While some of them seemed like common sense, many of them made me stop and think, “wow, I never thought of that before, but it makes a lot of sense.” Others alluded to things that I had experienced on tests as a student, some good and some bad. For example, I’ve always hated timed tests, and I’ve had teachers that have projected a ticking digital clock onto the screen at the front of the room during a test. This only made me anxious and made it harder for me to focus on the test. I can understand that putting a time limit on tests can sometimes be necessary and beneficial, such as when students are practicing for an AP exam. I will try not to intimidate my students with timed testing unless it is for a purpose like AP prep. Another thing that I can’t stand to see on tests as a student is questions like the first one the chapter introduces in which you are required to choose an answer that “best fits.” Unfortunately, many AP exams ask questions like this (or at least I found that the literature and language composition ones did), but it doesn’t mean that teachers should model these questions in tests that they design themselves. I certainly won’t do that in my classroom. Instead, I will do as Wormeli suggests and include a variety of different questions that are clear and straightforward. I was a little surprised by the section where he said to “include common errors as candidates for responses” (81) To me, these sound a lot like trick questions, which most students dread and deem as “unfair,” but I can understand how they provide insight as to how well as student has mastered a subject. I agree that it’s important to let students know ahead of time that there will be such questions on the test, however.
Rhi
When I was growing up in middle and high school, a lot of teachers would create their tests not based off of what the students needed to know. There would be random questions on the test that were variations of what the study guide said. In my own opinion, making cryptic questions or slightly changing questions has no purpose in assessing the knowledge of students, it just confuses them and causes them to doubt their answers. Another topic that this chapter discussed was making assessments efficient and clear for students. For example, using true or false questions on tests. A lot of times the T and F look alike and to make sure students are giving clear responses, it would be better to have the T’s and F’s already written out. We aren’t always testing students on their writing ability, so why make this something you, as a teacher, have to worry about when grading. This section of the chapter also talked about how to format matching questions. I think this part was just too specific and unnecessary. I remember questions that teachers would ask phrased, “Which of these is NOT associated with…”, this does not assess understanding, but gives the student more to think about and makes them have to sort of decode the question before figuring out the actual answer. The point of assessing students is to be able to see how much they understand from the unit and to know how the class is doing as a whole, if you can move on to a new topic or if they need more work in a certain area.
Table of Contents
Sarah
This chapter mainly talked about tests and what makes up a good test. I learned about mixing traditional and non-traditional questions in a test and about mixing forced choice and constructed response questions in a test. I learned what is considered traditional and not traditional. Traditional questions tend to be true/false, matching, fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, definitions, essays, and short answers. Non-traditional questions tend to be questions that incorporate analogies, drawings, diagrams, demonstrations/performances, more than one topic, and brainstorming. I learned the difference between forced choice and constructed response questions. Forced choice questions are questions and prompts that require students to choose from the responses provided by the teacher. Constructed response questions are questions or prompts for which students must generate the information themselves and apply it in the manner requested by the teacher. Some key points that the chapter pointed out about tests were the less students have to guess, the more they can achieve; and students appreciate meaty tasks more than drudgery tasks. Some tips that the chapter gave teachers were to give smaller more frequent tests, to list the standards at the top of the test, and to arrange challenge level of the problems either by starting easy and getting progressively harder or to mix the level throughout the test. The tips and suggestions that this chapter gave will impact me when making lesson plans and when creating tests. Knowing what makes a good test will help me evaluate tests that I will create and see if I have incorporated the things that make a good test into my tests.Dominick
This chapter goes over the importance of test questions. It is extremely important to make test questions that do not confuse students. Students should answer questions that are direct and without confusion. If a student has a question posed to them that is straightforward then they are more likely to understand it, which then makes it more likely that they will be able to answer the question more efficiently. Why would a teacher ever ask their students questions that would confuse them? The student is already under enough pressure trying to take the test, why do they need more pressure to understand what the question is talking about. As teachers it is our job to make sure students understand questions that we ask them, not to be confused by them. We should also focus on making the question short, providing excessive information in the question will only cloud the student’s concentration when trying to make a decision. Another thing that future educators should keep in mind is to not over due a question. Teachers should not make a bunch of questions that are similar to each other in an attempt to once again confuse the student. This is not only annoying to the student, but it is repetitive. The last and possibly the most important thing for teachers to keep in mind about students taking tests is to not have the test timed. If the test is timed then the student is going to be rushed and make mistakes. I have been in that position before and asa student I can’t stand when teachers put students on the clock.Cheyenne
This chapter discusses how to create meaningful test questions. Test questions should be easy to understand, with the teacher’s intentions being clear. Students shouldn’t have to worry about trick questions or trying to figure out what exactly a teacher is looking for. The point of tests is to assess students’ mastery, not to try and fail them on purpose with confusing questions. Each question needs to be meaningful and have an explicit purpose.I really liked the idea of asking students to clarify why they chose a certain multiple choice answer, or clarifying a true/false question. I don’t know if it’s something I would want to do as a student, but from a teaching perspective, it’s definitely a good way to take note of a student's true level of understanding. With multiple choice questions, it is very easy for students to just guess and unknowingly pick the correct answer. Of course, doing this would require an interesting way of grading, because if a student got the question itself right but the explanation wrong, an argument could be made that they still got the question partially right. Maybe scoring for that could be something discussed with the class as a whole, so students are aware before hand what the point system would be for a situation like that.
Related to student awareness, I really liked how this chapter pushed making students aware of exactly what will be on the test, especially in terms of questions that might be trickier (such as having one that is impossible to answer). Honestly, I’m in favor of complete study guide, which help students know exactly what they should be studying and understanding, rather than letting them guess what they’ll need to understand.
Cory
This chapter talked about how to make good test questions. This is an extremely valuable thing for all teachers to know. Without the proper test questions, then a student will not be assessed correctly. This chapter included quite a bit of information that seemed rather general and unnecessary to be reiterated to me at least, but some of it was rather new and interesting to think about. I had never really thought about the efficiency factor when I was taking tests in school Looking back, I do remember teachers who had T’s and F’s to circle for their true and false questions and those that didn’t. I never really thought about it, but circling the letters makes it some much easier on the teacher while having little to no impact to how the student actually takes the test. Now teachers don’t have to guess whether or not a letter is and F or a T, they will know right away. One of the things that I will find hard is figuring out ways to make some of my questions more enjoyable. Social studies doesn’t have very many questions where I can add a student’s name and interest like some math examples they gave us. I can use students name when describing a kind of person in a vocabulary word, but other than that I can’t think of much. One thing I really liked was something professor Melcher did last semester in my political science class. He added little funny pictures that were jokes or vaguely had something to do with the content all around the test to be funny and keep our interest. That could be something I can do.Lydia
While the majority of you class should not be based on tests they are still a way to assess a student in you class. This chapter gives helpful hints on how you should set up tests for students in a differentiated classroom. The first thing that is important is to have a variety of questions for example have a few multiple choice, matching and fill in the blanks as well as have a few that engage the students’ thinking. Writing prompts are a good idea to have because they let the student explain why their answer is the way it is. It is also important to include tiering in the tests that you give. It is also important to give feedback on a test as soon as possible, a way to do this would be to have students write two copies of their answers and have them keep one and go over the test right away.This will all affect my class because they will have feedback from me in a timely manner and will give them more motivation to want to learn more. Also if I give a variety of questions some students’ may be able to answer certain types of questions while struggling with other types. By having a variety of questions I can determine what a student’s strengths and weaknesses are and make sure that they are just memorizing the information. Another thing that I could do is ask students why they chose a certain answer on multiple choice. This will help me determine if their logic is correct or if they have any misunderstandings about the information.
Shane
The amount of information in this chapter really made the reading worth it. I think this may be the chapter that I have most agreed with and found the most important. This chapter taught us how to make testing easier on ourselves as well as our students. As teachers we need to create questions that are fair, yet meaningful and engaging. The biggest thing I agreed with is making an environment that is fair. The more straight forward we are the more they are going to get out of the education. If students have that test anxiety, it is going to be harder for them to succeed or portray information and that can reflect badly. The part where he said no one can professionally try to collapse knowledge into an hour of intense performance hit me hard. I hate having a time limit to testing or quizzes. If we want our students to do alright, then we need to make it a fairly stress free zone instead of making them feel like they are racing for there life. As a student I hate sitting down starting the test and thinking if I spend more than 2 minutes on a question then it is game over, or looking at the clock with 10 problems left and 5 minutes and just getting the sweats thinking I have to at least write something down. As a teacher I think the biggest concept I will try to incorporate would be making traditional and non traditional questions. I feel like this could help each individual learner. Sometimes students can’t put thoughts into words so allowing a diagram or drawing may end helping in the long run.Sara
In chapter six of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, we learn about what makes a test question good. This is a very important topic because the way a question is phrased or just the nature of the question can mean the difference between a student passing or not. There are many different types of questions and each one has a time and place as to when it should be used. It is important for teachers to carefully think about their tests and create tests that will best evaluate student knowledge while also being clear and concise. If questions are short answer questions, teachers need to be aware of many things when asking the question. They need to keep in mind how they ask the question, is it clear what they want students to do, and what they are trying to say. It is best to keep the questions short, especially if a test is timed, students need to focus on answering the questions rather than spending a lot of time reading length questions.For multiple choice questions or true or false questions one thing to keep in mind is patterns. Patterns may naturally appear, but teachers need to be sure that they do not have a set pattern that students can figure out and answer questions correctly when they don’t truly know the answer. It is also a good idea to include similar answers or commonly mistaken answers.
In a math classroom most of the questions will be solving equations, however it is important to have a variety of questions to better help students understand the material and to better ensure that they actually know the material.
Katelin
There were many aspects of this chapter that stood out to me and I agreed with, but a lot of it was hard for me to agree with. I honestly do not think I am going to test students and have them be graded by one performance test they take. When students are tired, they do not test well. Well, students are tired a lot of the time for numerous reasons, and there’s nothing that teachers can really do to change that. Students have test anxiety, and the only way to help that is to test better, and make it clear that tests are not graded the way they are used to. Doing what we can to help students not get tired is a good tool to have. Feedback is so so important to students in their learning. The tests are not there to see who can persevere to the end, but who can master concepts. Students constantly lose points on tests that are not even conceptual issues, but minute details that are not even what the test standard is trying to test. I would not give a test to grade versus on points, but on standards. Look at what the student understood conceptually, and pick out what they need to work on and find another way for them to be “tested” on it once they learn it. The point is not to have the student learn something to just get by on the test and pass it, but to conceptually understand everything the test is trying to accomplish.Cooper
This chapter talked about test questions and how to make them accessible essentially. Basically this chapter served as a reminder that our job as teachers when we make tests is not to trap students into getting the wrong answer but rather to assess their understanding of the content. That is why it is important to try to be as clear as possible when wording a question so that students have very little opportunity to misinterpret the meaning of the question. Again the purpose of the test is to give students the opportunity to show their understanding of the content not to show how carefully they can read and understand what the question is asking of them. This is partially why I liked the idea of giving students oral exams rather than written exams. By having the opportunity to clarify their train of thought or the process the used to come to an answer I can more accurately assess their understanding of the material as opposed to just seeing that they answered a multiple choice question wrong. I also felt that being given the opportunity to explain why you chose an answer on a multiple choice question could be really effective. Not only would it be helpful for me a as teacher to know their thought process when answering the question, but it would also give them the opportunity to think about why they chose the answer that they did and potentially change it. Perhaps being forced to explain their own thinking would reveal that they chose an answer too quickly and did not take the time to fully understand the question.
Laura
This chapter provided a handful of straightforward and practical tips and tricks for designing test questions. While some of them seemed like common sense, many of them made me stop and think, “wow, I never thought of that before, but it makes a lot of sense.” Others alluded to things that I had experienced on tests as a student, some good and some bad. For example, I’ve always hated timed tests, and I’ve had teachers that have projected a ticking digital clock onto the screen at the front of the room during a test. This only made me anxious and made it harder for me to focus on the test. I can understand that putting a time limit on tests can sometimes be necessary and beneficial, such as when students are practicing for an AP exam. I will try not to intimidate my students with timed testing unless it is for a purpose like AP prep. Another thing that I can’t stand to see on tests as a student is questions like the first one the chapter introduces in which you are required to choose an answer that “best fits.” Unfortunately, many AP exams ask questions like this (or at least I found that the literature and language composition ones did), but it doesn’t mean that teachers should model these questions in tests that they design themselves. I certainly won’t do that in my classroom. Instead, I will do as Wormeli suggests and include a variety of different questions that are clear and straightforward. I was a little surprised by the section where he said to “include common errors as candidates for responses” (81) To me, these sound a lot like trick questions, which most students dread and deem as “unfair,” but I can understand how they provide insight as to how well as student has mastered a subject. I agree that it’s important to let students know ahead of time that there will be such questions on the test, however.Rhi
When I was growing up in middle and high school, a lot of teachers would create their tests not based off of what the students needed to know. There would be random questions on the test that were variations of what the study guide said. In my own opinion, making cryptic questions or slightly changing questions has no purpose in assessing the knowledge of students, it just confuses them and causes them to doubt their answers. Another topic that this chapter discussed was making assessments efficient and clear for students. For example, using true or false questions on tests. A lot of times the T and F look alike and to make sure students are giving clear responses, it would be better to have the T’s and F’s already written out. We aren’t always testing students on their writing ability, so why make this something you, as a teacher, have to worry about when grading. This section of the chapter also talked about how to format matching questions. I think this part was just too specific and unnecessary. I remember questions that teachers would ask phrased, “Which of these is NOT associated with…”, this does not assess understanding, but gives the student more to think about and makes them have to sort of decode the question before figuring out the actual answer. The point of assessing students is to be able to see how much they understand from the unit and to know how the class is doing as a whole, if you can move on to a new topic or if they need more work in a certain area.